Event Details

Who are you? Who are we? Are you in control of your own destiny?

The Institute Presents: NEUROSOCIETY, co-created by David Byrne and Mala Gaonkar, is an 80-minute immersive theater performance where you will be guided through a series of experiences created in collaboration with working neuroscience labs.

The exhibition will be on view at Pace Art + Technology, located at 350 El Camino Real in Menlo Park and will run until March 31, 2017.

The Institute Presents: Neurosociety is a series of interactive environments that Byrne and Gaonkar have created to present the emerging work of fifteen cognitive neuroscience labs around the world. For Neurosociety, They collaborated with labs from California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, Harvard University, Karolinska Institutet, New York University, Princeton University, University College London and Yale University. Research by these establishments informs the concepts explored in Neurosociety.

According to Byrne and Gaonkar, “Experiments, we feel, are a form of theater. We have adopted elements of art installation and immersive theater to present these experiences in ways we think will be as engaging for others as they have been for us. We traveled and met with many scientists who generously welcomed us, patiently answered our untutored questions, and creatively collaborated with us on this project. In the course of creating The Institute, the work of our partner labs has become both a window and a mirror through which we view ourselves and our larger interactions with the world. We wanted to share these concepts with as many people as possible.”

In Neurosociety, groups of ten visitors will be guided through four separate spaces, where they will participate in immersive theatrical demonstrations and experiments. Each interaction will reveal how the brain builds a subjective measure of the world and is fundamentally guided by pragmatic concerns anchored in personal experiences. These responses gradually reveal not only aspects of ourselves but also how we interact with others, often in counterintuitive and surprising ways. Visitors will be embodied in a doll, see their hands grow to a vast size, accurately predict election results of fictional politicians, witness moving objects freeze and discover how fair and trusting they are with others. Rather than read about cognitive behavioral science, visitors will experience it for themselves, in a visceral and entertaining way. Each room will be a stage that mirrors a strange, yet familiar, series of people and places. With the consent of participants, visitors’ reactions and decisions will be anonymized and used by the labs to further their research. Each visitor thereby becomes a unique and integral part of The Institute’songoing research.

The theater performance is recommended for ages 13+

Attendees must be 10 or older.

Each show will run for an estimated 80 minutes.

Tickets are non-refundable.

Tickets are valid for your scheduled time only.

Last entry on November 23rd will be at 2:00pm and the exhibition will be closed until November 29th.

Last entry on December 23rd will be at 2:00pm and the exhibition will be closed until January 4th.

About David Byrne: David Byrne is co-founder of the influential and acclaimed band Talking Heads. As a solo artist, his career

has been prolific and wide-ranging. He has written and directed feature films, exhibited visual art for decades and published both fiction and non-fiction writing to great acclaim.

About Mala Gaonkar: A technology investor at an investment advisory firm, Mala Gaonkar's non-profit work focuses on innovations that shift community behaviors and biases, aiding public health and education outcomes. She is a founding trustee of Ariadne Labs, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and Surgo Foundation, and a trustee of Tate. She also serves on the digital advisory board of The Economist.

The Institute Presents: NEUROSOCIETY with Pace Art + Technology would like to thank

When & Where

350 El Camino Real
Menlo Park,
CA 94025

Sunday, December 4, 2016 from 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM (PST)

Organizer

Pace Art + Technology

Established in 2015 by Pace President Marc Glimcher, Pace Art + Technology is the gallery’s new program dedicated to showcasing interdisciplinary art groups, collectives and studios whose works explore the confluence of art and technology.

Pace Gallery is a leading contemporary art gallery representing many of the most significant international artists and estates of the 20th and 21st centuries. Founded by Arne Glimcher in Boston in 1960 and led by Marc Glimcher, Pace has been a constant, vital force in the art world and has introduced many renowned artists’ work to the public for the first time. Over the past five decades, the gallery has mounted more than 800 exhibitions, including scholarly shows that have subsequently traveled to museums, and has published over 400 exhibition catalogues. Today, Pace has locations worldwide: four galleries in New York, two in London as well as galleries and exhibition spaces in Beijing Hong Kong, Paris, Menlo Park and Palo Alto, California.